


Crichton Pan

by icepixie



Category: Farscape
Genre: Crack, F/M, Humor, Parody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-09-01
Updated: 2000-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:33:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icepixie/pseuds/icepixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very deranged version of Peter Pan. Very deranged.  Spoiler for "Bone to Be Wild."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crichton Pan

There once was a boy who would never grow up. His full name was John Crichton Pan, Captain of the Lost DRDs, but most of the time he went by John. It made things simpler.

There once also was a family of the name Darling, who lived at 14 Leviathan Lane. There were a Mr. Larraq and Mrs. Gilina Darling, of course, and their three children: from oldest to youngest, Aeryn, D'Argo, and Pilot Darling. (Admittedly, the boys had rather odd names, but Mr. Darling always explained it away by saying they had been named after very distant ancestors.) To complete the family was the children's nanny, who came in the form of a dog named Moya.

One night, Mr. and Mrs. Darling were called to be present at a training session so that they could learn new techniques for their line of work, which happened to be something very much like police work. They would have left the children in the care of Moya, except that Mr. Darling had gone into a fit of rage at the dog. The other members of the family had seen it fit to pay more attention to *Moya* than to him when he needed his pulse rifle refilled with chakan oil, but could not find the bottle in which it was kept...! He had summarily banished Moya to the yard, with all the frightening things that the yard at night entailed. Moya was to spend the night awake, terribly scared, and wanting nothing but to be back in the warm room with her precious charges.

But our story does not concern Moya, though I will let you know beforehand, so as to quell any fears, that she did survive the night and was allowed back into the nursery.

Before the Darling parents left, the children begged Mrs. Darling for a story. She couldn't ignore their pleading eyes and voices, and so, as she tucked them in to bed, she hastily told them a story concerning John Crichton Pan, and how she had met him once when she was a very small child, surely not much older than Pilot, who was only approaching three himself. He was a child who could never grow up, she said; he had decided that he never would become a man, and sealed his fate when he ran away from his mother the day he was born. He had been raised to the age of ten--Aeryn's age at present--by the humans on an odd, backward planet called Erp, and then had flown off to NeverNeverLand. He occasionally returned to civilization, though, which was how the young Mrs. Darling had met him. He had offered to take her to NeverNeverLand with him, but she had been far too scared of leaving her mother, and had declined the invitation. He had stayed for a while, though, and played his tape recorder for her. The recorder was a magical instrument, capable of producing speech, music, and any other sound as long as the correct tape was inside, and it was truly amazing what one could get on tape these days.

Aeryn, D'Argo, and Pilot all hoped that she would tell them more about this mysterious John Crichton Pan, but all too soon Mr. Darling blustered back into the nursery, collected his wife, and off they went to the training session down the road, with admonitions to the kitchen maid to keep watch on the children while they were gone.

Being, overall, good little children, Aeryn, D'Argo, and Pilot all tried very hard to go to sleep. Their minds were filled with the magic of their mother's tale of John Crichton Pan, though, and they found it utterly impossible to sleep a wink. Aeryn found her mind's eye plagued with the image of what he certainly must look like--he was so handsome! (not, of course, that she cared about things like that)--while D'Argo could hear nothing but the beautiful music that surely came out of John's tape recorder, and Pilot was quite taken with the idea of John's ability to fly.

All of a sudden, there was a loud clatter at the open window. The three children sat up in their beds at once, three pairs of eyes immediately drawn to the now-closed window...and to the boyish figure standing in front of it.

* * * * *

As he usually did on evenings when the weather was nice, John had taken a walk around the Uncharted Territories. He'd played with the baby stars, greeted their parents cordially, if a bit awkwardly (he was not well-versed in the customs of the Uncharted Territories...a human upbringing will do that to you), and was just thinking about heading back to NeverNeverLand.

However, in front of him there arose a truly magnificent pool of blue, swirling...something. John, being an inquisitive boy, of course approached it to investigate. He had not counted on being sucked into the pool.

But he arrived on the other side, not much worse for the wear. He found himself in the neighborhood of Leviathan Lane, and immediately had the idea of visiting the cute little blonde girl--Gilina, her name was--that he had known once upon a time.

Of course, John, living in NeverNeverLand, could not have known the time that had passed in the world we know. He still believed Mrs. Darling to be the little girl he had played his recorder for for on a night that did not seem that far away.

So he was understandably upset when he peeked into the open window of the nursery at 14 Leviathan Lane and spied not Gilina, but three unfamiliar children. *Surely this cannot be,* John thought. *She couldn't have moved.* Then he looked closer at the faces of the children, lit faintly by the nightlights in the room, and saw something that made his stomach clench in horror: while the children were not Gilina, they did look something like her. (We are so ignoring the fact that Gilina doesn't really look like any of them, except for possibly Aeryn, and then only because they're both Sebacean. Got it?)

*No,* John thought, *no, this isn't possible...she can't have *grown* *up*!*

But of course, she had, and except as a half-remembered tale to tell her children, she had forgotten all about the boy who had visited her one night when she was but a tiny girl. She had grown up, gotten married, and had children of her own.

Needing some time to accept this, John perched on the windowsill, quietly, so as not to wake this new generation. He had to move quickly, though, when the window, which was coming loose, threatened to crash down and crush him to bits! He didn't move quite fast enough, though, for the window caught his puzzle ring in between sash and sill on its journey downward, and John was left to stand inside the nursery, staring at his broken ring with something akin to shock on his face.

The noise of course alerted the children (who hadn't been sleeping anyway). John turned quickly when he heard the three identical gasps that were his greeting.

It was Aeryn who regained her voice first. "Who are you?" she asked, happy that there was no tremor in her voice. She prided herself on being the bravest of the children.

"I'm John Crichton Pan, but you can call me John," the new boy replied gallantly. Three more intakes of breath, this time of recognition, went up from the Darling children. "Although I'm going to be leaving in a moment, as soon as I put my puzzle ring back together, so I don't know when you'll get a chance to call me anything." He lifted the window sash and pulled out his ring, then began, without much success, to attempt putting it back together in the proper way. "Who are you?"

They each introduced themselves. Pilot noticed a bright light flying around the room. He asked, "What is that?" and pointed to the flickering light.

"And what is the music I hear?" D'Argo asked, feeling as brave as his sister. "It sounds like bells."

Still somewhat occupied with his recalcitrant puzzle ring, John answered distractedly, "That? Oh, that's Chiabell. She's a fairy, and the bells are fairy talk. Even the translator microbes can't deal with it." The fluttering light--Chiabell--was now tightrope-walking along the strings of D'Argo's shilquin.

Aeryn, noticing that John was having trouble with the ring, got out of bed and went over to the window. "Don't you know that the layers go in a specified order?" she asked, wondering how the boy could *not* know this simple bit of information.

John turned to face her, a hurt expression on his face. "I don't come here often," he defended himself, "where I come from, puzzle rings always stay together."

Aeryn's attitude toward the boy softened, though she did not let him see it. "Well, wait a moment," she said, sounding very put-upon, "and I'll put it back together for you."

D'Argo crept closer to Chiabell, every now and then catching a glimpse of the fairy inside the ball of light. She was grey in color, and had a smile on her face which, even though he was but six years old, he found quite charming, for a girl. He reached out a hand to touch her, if she would let him, and happily enough she hopped right into his hand and pranced around in a fairy dance.

Pilot, still in his bed, was dividing his attention between his sister and brother. Dividing attention was something he found easy to do, and so watching both the boy's and the fairy's interactions with his siblings at the same time was not at all hard.

"Here." Aeryn took the puzzle ring in her hand, and almost instantly it was back together. When she gave it back to him, John took it reverently in his hand, amazement coloring his expression.

"Thank you," he said gravely, putting a hand on her shoulder. Abruptly, a twinkling light was between then, and a tiny hand was slapping John's, while tiny teeth bit into Aeryn's shoulder. "Pip!" John said sternly. Chiabell reluctantly--and slowly--stopped abusing them, and haughtily flew away, kicking up bits of fairy dust in her wake.

"Sorry about that," John shrugged. "She's...well, she's a bit possessive."

Already disliking the little fairy, Aeryn sniffed in agreement.

"JohnPan," Pilot said suddenly from his bed (for he always called everyone by first and last name, even his own parents), "can you really fly? Could you teach us to fly, as well?"

John smiled. "'Course I can," he boasted, allowing himself to gradually float toward the ceiling as he did so. The Darlings looked on in awe. "And I can teach you all to fly, too--and then you can come with me to NeverNeverLand, and keep me and the Lost DRDs company!" He looked immensely pleased with this idea.

Pilot clapped his hands at this, but D'Argo and Aeryn were more cautious. "This would not be...unduly dangerous?" D'Argo asked, thinking only for the safety of his brother and sister, of course.

"Are ya *scared*?" John teased from his position at the ceiling. Before D'Argo could protest, he continued, "Nah, it's not that bad. Although if the Peacekeepers come around, then we might have a little fight on our hands..."

"I am ready!" D'Argo cried, grabbing his mini-Qualta Blade and brandishing it in front of him.

John choked back a laugh. "Good. We can always use another warrior," he said seriously.

Aeryn was indignant. "What about me?" she asked, taking her Junior Pulse Rifle in hand. "I can fight Peacekeepers better than he can."

"Can not!" D'Argo contested hotly.

"Can so!" she replied with equal ferocity.

Before the squabble could escalate into something bigger, John silenced them. "We probably won't even meet the Peacekeepers, or at least not for a long time."

Aeryn threw down her pulse rifle. "Then what's the point of going?" She sat down on her bed. "If I can't fight Peacekeepers, then why should I even leave?"

John dove down to Aeryn's bed and knelt next to her. "Aeryn...it doesn't have to be something you fight against to be interesting. You can be more than a soldier-in-training, you know."

"But that's what I *am*," Aeryn protested. Still, her imagination was tickled with the idea of visiting the fabled NeverNeverLand, even if she wouldn't get to fight Peacekeepers.

"Come on, Aeryn," chorused her brothers. John looked so pleading that she finally threw up her hands and agreed to come.

"Yaaaay!" D'Argo and Pilot cheered. John did a flip of happiness, floating toward the ceiling again.

Regaining control of himself, John was all business. "Now," he said, "you all need to be sprinkled with pixie dust before you can fly."

"Pixie dust? What's that?" D'Argo asked.

John put a finger to his lips to indicate a need for silence. He crept up to Chiabell, who was at the moment fluttering around the toy Leviathan laying on the carpeted floor. Without warning, John reached out and grabbed the little fairy.

Breaking glass sounded in what could only be a fairy-language protest. John paid her no heed, though, and shook out enough golden dust into the palm of his hand to give all three of the Darling children the ability to fly.

Once he'd sprinkled the dust onto their heads and wiped the remnants on his pants, the children looked down to see if they were flying yet. Unfortunately, their feet were still attached to the ground. "How do we fly?" Pilot asked.

As he floated around the room, John tried to remember how he did it. It had been such a long time since he'd learned...ah, yes, now he remembered. "Think happy thoughts, the most wonderful thoughts you can come up with," he advised.

Three brows furrowed in concentration as each other children thought about what made him or her the most happy.

Suddenly, they were in the air!

They each crowed with delight, and chased each other around the ceiling for a bit, even the normally-reserved Aeryn. Unfortunately, Aeryn managed to misjudge her speed relative to her distance from the wall, and, well... John was very, very lucky that his off-hand comment of, "So that's what happens when fairy dust goes bad," was not heard by Aeryn, who was a little more absorbed in pretending that the bump on her head didn't hurt.

Soon enough, John called for their attention, and told them that they would presently be going to NeverNeverLand.

"How do you get there?" asked Aeryn as she grabbed her pulse rifle--just in case they *did* run into Peacekeepers.

John handed D'Argo's Qualta Blade to the younger boy as he replied, "Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning."

Aeryn and D'Argo thought this a very odd address, but did not have time for more questions, for soon they and Pilot were following John and Chiabell out the window.

* * * * *

After a trip of indeterminate length through much of the glory of the galaxy, they arrived at NeverNeverLand.

More precisely, they arrived quite near it, near enough to see the land spread out before them, and make crude bird's-eye maps in their minds before descent. Chiabell had gone on to round up the Lost DRDs, John's collection of little machines who had somehow fallen out of their Leviathans. As one, John and the children started to float down to the island of NeverNeverLand.

A pulse beam suddenly flew right past Aeryn's shoulder. She wasted no time in asking what had happened, but instead charged down to the place on the island where the deadly burst of energy had come from. Knowing that nothing good could happen when their sister was mad, D'Argo and Pilot quickly followed, with John right behind them.

When the boys arrived on the ground, they found Aeryn lying in the grass, struggling with a group of about six DRDs, a hand clasped around a few eyestalks and a foot ready to kick the daylights out of another of the little machines.

"Aeryn, wait!" John cried. "You'll hurt them!"

"One of them just tried to kill me, John!" Aeryn called, her kick going slightly off-center by the surprise of his yell and only dazing the DRD it was intended for.

John put two fingers in his mouth and whistled excruciatingly. All movement of the DRDs and Aeryn immediately stopped, and John set out to find the truth of what had happened.

"Pip, stay right here," he commanded when he noticed Chiabell attempting to make a discreet exit. She stopped in her tracks.

John stared down the DRDs, who had put themselves into a ragged line once Aeryn had stood up. "All right," he said, "which one of you tried to kill Aeryn?"

There was a heavy pause, and then one DRD meekly rolled forward. It had a bit of blue electrical tape wrapped around one eyestalk, which was the only thing that differentiated it from its fellows.

"Why?" John asked simply. The DRD's only response was to point its laser-repair appendage at the hovering form of Chiabell.

John's gaze followed. "Pi-ip," he reproved. "Did you tell the Lost DRDs to try to kill Aeryn?"

A flurry of chiming bells greeted his question; obviously, Chiabell explaining herself.

"That's no excuse, Pip," John said once she was finished. Aeryn quite agreed. "I'm just going to have to banish you forever."

An indignant chime followed that remark. "Maybe that's a little harsh," D'Argo said quickly. "Could you just banish her for a week?" A week seemed a long enough time for him.

John considered it. "All right," he agreed. "Don't come back for a week." His expression was as solemn as could be found on a ten-year-old boy.

Chiabell's bubble of light slowly fluttered away into the surrounding forest, silently accepting of her fate. She spared a parting glare to Aeryn, who returned it with a stuck-out tongue.

Shaking his head in despair at the mischievous--and jealous--little fairy, John invited the Darling children to the home that he and the Lost DRDs shared. They quickly agreed, and the entire troup set off through the woods.

It took but minutes (as they are measured in NeverNeverLand) to get to the residence. The children were quite surprised to see that John and his DRDs made their home in a grounded Leviathan. To the Darlings, a Leviathan was as prosaic as, say, a tree, and the idea of living in one was at once new and different and also somewhat absurd. They soon discovered upon entrance into the living ship, though, that it was quite spacious and comfortable, and made a very nice home. John and each of the DRDs had his or its own cell, and there were plenty left over for Aeryn, D'Argo and Pilot (though Pilot seemed especially drawn to an expansive chamber containing an unintelligible computer console near the belly of the Leviathan, for reasons no one could exactly figure out). There was a mess hall, and a command center, and a terrace at the top, which everyone agreed was the most enchanting feature of the living ship/house.

Having brought only the nightclothes they were wearing, the Darlings didn't exactly have much to settle in, so they accompanied John and the DRDs to the mess hall. John handed out food cubes to everyone, even though the DRDs couldn't eat them. It made it feel more family-like if they at least had food on their plates. He apologized to Aeryn, D'Argo, and Pilot that the food cubes were, well, not exactly gourmet fare, but it was all he had, and they could pretend that the food was better-tasting.

Once the meal was over, everyone was quite tired. After all, the Darlings hadn't had any sleep yet, and it was *well* past their bedtime. They all retired for the night, John promising adventures in the morning.

* * * * *

"Wake up, wake up!" was the shout that roused everyone the next morning. It was John, of course, and his exuberance caused them all to jump out of bed immediately. They clattered into the mess hall, where John informed them of what had happened: the blueskin princess Tiger Zhaan had been captured by Captain Crais of the Peacekeepers, and was going to be drowned on Marooner's Rock in the nearby lagoon when the tide came in.

Of course, they had to rescue Princess Tiger Zhaan. After all, John wanted to stay on the blueskins' good side, because if not...well, he didn't want to be an unwilling recipient of the effects of their fabled psychic powers.

(Privately, Aeryn thought the idea of psychic powers was a bunch of hogwash, but she didn't let John know this.)

Gathering up weaponry, John's tape recorder, and some food cubes just in case, they set out toward NeverNeverLand's biggest and best lagoon. It wasn't a long trudge, and soon they were at the water's shore. They were sharing the beach with an exceedingly strange-looking...ship?

"What is that?" Aeryn asked, pointing at the white, pod-like thing. "It looks...antique."

John frowned. "*That* is cutting-edge technology from Earth, I'll have you know. Or it was when I left, anyway. And I fitted it with some bio-mechanoid parts from the Leviathan, too, so it's even *better* than cutting-edge. I guess."

Aeryn and D'Argo looked at each other, both thinking that the little ship wouldn't stand a chance if they ran into the prowlers of the Peacekeepers.

"Anyway, it floats, so we're using it to get out to Marooner's Rock," John said decisively.

D'Argo and Aeryn managed to hold in their groans.

The four piled into the module, just managing to squeeze in without leaving any appendages floating around outside the door. (Have I mentioned that they're all child-sized? Good.) Aeryn was scrunched up next to John, and Pilot and D'Argo were squished into the back of the compartment. John powered up the module--for some odd reason, he called it "Farscape Jr."--and they floated out into the lagoon.

It was a long enough time to get uncomfortable but not a long enough time to come to blows before they reached Marooner's Rock, and, hence, Princess Tiger Zhaan. "Zhaan!" John called once they were in sight of her. He stood up and started to wave from the open canopy, but was immediately yanked back into the module by Aeryn.

"Are you trying to get us all *killed*?" she hissed at him. Pilot and D'Argo didn't look too happy, either. Aeryn didn't wait for an answer before saying, "The Peacekeepers might still be around. If they are--"

The sound of an engine roaring in the air overhead became noticeably louder.

"--you've just alerted them to our presence." Her hands were on his neck by now, and John was turning a nice shade of purple from lack of oxygen.

D'Argo, all business, asked--or rather, yelled rhetorically--"How do you fly this thing?!"

John, unable to reply because of Aeryn's hands around his windpipe, only motioned vaguely at the various controls.

Pilot vaulted up to the front, squishing John and Aeryn closer together and closer to the wall of the module in the process. "Let me see what I can do." His four arms moved over the controls like he really knew what he was doing, and soon they were zooming out to the princess on the rock.

Knowing that time was of the essence, with Peacekeeper prowlers flying all too near for comfort, all four hopped out of the module to help untie Princess Zhaan from what reminded Pilot of an extra-large version of the sticks his mother used to prop up plants that couldn't stand up straight on their own.

They were just about to release the beautiful princess when she shouted, "Stop!"

They stopped. Aeryn regained her voice first, and asked, "What do you mean, 'stop'?" She glanced involuntarily at the sky, searching for the prowlers.

Zhaan cocked her head to her right and glanced downward. The others followed her gaze to a small spray bottle that was sitting by her feet, which they had somehow overlooked. "Weed-killer," Zhaan explained succinctly. "Captain Crais told me that it will spray automatically if the bonds are loosened enough for me to get away."

While it immediately enlightened the Darling children, the explanation did nothing for John. It was D'Argo who took pity on John's confused expression this time. Sort of. "How could you not know that blue-skins are flora?" The "you idiot" was implied.

John glared at him as he tried to assimilate this new information. "I was raised by humans, remember?"

The simmering argument was interrupted by a very ominous and quite frightening noise. The wind carried the sound of a pirate voice that sounded suspiciously like Captain Crais' singing. Not the usual "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of ras'lak," but a much more frightening song, considering the source.

"Mary had a little trelkez, little trelkez, little trelkez..."

Aeryn's voice was dangerous. "John," she asked, in a tightly controlled whisper, "who, exactly, is this Captain Crais?"

John gulped. "He's, um...he's--he's right behind us!"

And indeed, the captain was coming up on them rather rapidly, his white teeth gleaming in the sun as he stood up in his floating Prowler, leaning over the front canopy.

"Now would be a *really* good time to get the frell out of Dodge," John whispered. Even though they had no idea what the specifics of that statement referred to, the others all agreed wholeheartedly with the spirit of it. The problem of releasing Zhaan was solved quickly by D'Argo blocking the spray as John and Pilot unbound the princess, while Aeryn kept aiming at Crais's Prowler, waiting for him to come in range of her Junior Pulse Rifle. As soon as physically possible, they piled into John's module, looking a bit like clowns climbing into a tiny car, with D'Argo seated as far away from Zhaan as possible so that he wouldn't inadvertently drip weed killer on her. They started speeding across to the other side of the lagoon, hoping they could land before he came into range, then lose him in the forest.

No such luck. The module's engine sputtered and died just as a small creature appeared over the side, dressed in a red-and-white striped shirt, carrying a scepter, sitting in a flying chair, and having an altogether slimy air about him.

Aeryn and D'Argo immediately had their weapons trained on the little slimeball, but held their fire. For the moment.

"Rygel Smee?" John asked, already knowing who the little mer-Hynerian was. "What did you put in my engine?"

Rygel said proudly, "Keedva barbeque. The finest in NeverNeverLand, if I do say so myself." Then he remembered what he was supposed to be doing. "You're all to be taken to the Jolly Marauder by Captain Crais," he announced, "and no trying to escape, either!"

D'Argo's snarl and Aeryn's muttered, "Like frelling dren," combined to make Rygel...not at all shocked, unfortunately. Even the weapons proved no discomfort to the creature, for as fingers pressed to the triggers, Rygel only laughed. "What, you think I'd sabotage your primitive module and not take care of your weapons as well? Ha!"

D'Argo made to turn his pulse weapon back to the blade, but found that this Rygel Smee had managed to lock it into the pulse weapon position with the oh-so-useful barbeque, which only made D'Argo angrier.

"I believe that I can take this from here, Smee," came Crais' voice from behind them. John, Zhaan, and the Darlings spun around to see the famed captain inches away from them, a particularly evil-looking grin on his face.

To their credit, the children did try to fight their inevitable capture. Aeryn even got so far as splashing into the lagoon and starting to swim away before Rygel dragged her back to the Farscape Jr. Eventually, though, they were all tied hand and foot, their weapons taken away. There was no clear means of escape.

However, Crais and Smee had forgotten to do one thing that was soon to prove...well, if not fatal, then at least fatally annoying.

When you have a batch of prisoners, and one of those prisoners is John Crichton Pan, you do *not* leave them ungagged. And you *really* don't forget to take away their tape recorders.

* * * * *

"You know, Crais, I gotta ask: why not just kill us all back at my module? Why go through all the trouble of trussin' us up like a bunch of chickens, then takin' us to the Jolly Marauder--"

Crais cut into John's rambling with, "I can't kill you because this is a sillyfic based on a children's tale. It would be utterly wrong for Peter Pan to be killed by Captain Hook, so I have to do all this in order for you to have some chance of escaping." Crais did *not* look happy about that idea.

"Oh," John said, enlightenment spreading over his face. "But how am I supposed to get out of these bonds--"

"I DON'T KNOW! You are the protagonist, *you're* supposed to figure that out!" Crais screamed.

John attempted to look as apologetic as possible. "Okay, okay!"

Crais turned away from John with a mutter that the translator microbes couldn't deal with, but which John figured probably wasn't very nice. The captain stalked back to the stern of the ship to help Rygel with the installation of the plank which the prisoners were soon to walk.

John's gaze trailed Crais nervously for a moment before he turned, with effort, to face the others. "Any ideas on how to get out of here?"

They shook their heads. "If we must die, it will not be without a fight," D'Argo promised, though how he expected to fight with both hands tied behind his back and his ankles bound together was a mystery to the rest of them.

"I have served my purpose in the plot of this story," Pilot said, a serene expression on his face.

"I am at peace with myself," Zhaan said, also seemingly content with the way things were looking.

Aeryn looked at her brothers and the blueskin princess like they were all very, very nuts. "So you're all just going to give up, like the supporting characters you're meant to be?" she asked them, a glare divided between the three.

Their silence was answer enough. Aeryn turned her back to John's, wiggling her fingers as much as she could. "See if you can untie my hands."

John tried, but to no avail; too much circulation had been cut off for him to even think about untying knots. Apparently they were going to languish like roped-up bales of hay until someone else on the ship took notice of them. So there they waited...and waited...and waited...and waited...

...until finally the carpentry-impaired Crais and Smee came over to take them to the plank. They they had finally given up on fastening it to the Jolly Marauder with any sort of permanent fastener, and instead just tacked it on with some amnexis fluid that had been lying around. By this time, the children were all ready for their naps, or at least a snack, and were consequently very cranky. Well, crankier than usual, anyway.

Rygel Smee untied the prisoners' ankles so that they could actually *walk* the plank, and not just kind of hobble along into the water. Naturally, a struggle ensued, in which none of our heroes got very far, but John did manage to hit "play" on his tape recorder and throw it to the other side of the marauder.

After a moment of silence, polka muzak began blasting out of the recorder's tiny speaker.

Not half a microt after that, screams of agony filled the air, effectively drowning out the horrible sound that even elevator radios refused to play. The Darlings and Zhaan put their hands over their ears, and shot dirty looks at John. If the cost was scarring themselves for life, they were seriously wondering whether it wouldn't be better just to have walked the plank.

However, the one good thing that came out of John's spur-of-the-moment plan was that Crais and Rygel were also quite distressed by the muzak. Even Crais, who had a recording contract for children's albums of nursery rhymes like the aforesung "Mary Had a Little Trelkez," couldn't stomach the "music." So he and Rygel took the only sensible alternative--they jumped off the plank and started swimming away as fast as they could.

They hadn't gotten very far before D'Argo zoomed over to the other side of the ship and cracked the recorder over his knee, stopping the tape and every other bit of machinery in it.

"*D'Argo*!" John cried. "Why'd you do that? That was my only tape recorder!"

"It was irreversibly contaminated. There is no possible way it could ever be used again," D'Argo replied, grinding small bits of tape underneath his boot.

"There will be other tape recorders, John," Zhaan said sympathetically, patting the boy's shoulder.

Aeryn, itching to go over to D'Argo and mash some plastic herself, instead restrained herself and looked at John. "The more pressing issue, I think, is exactly *why* you were carrying around a tape of that...that...musical aberrance, John," she said, raising an eyebrow.

John's face began to turn somewhat red. "Well...uh...you see..."

He was saved from having to answer by the appearance of a bright light, with accompanying tinkling sounds.

"Hold on a second! Wasn't I supposed to be your deus ex machina and save you?!" an indignant soprano voice called out.

John whirled toward the light. "Chiabell?" he asked incredulously. "When did you start talking in something the microbes could deal with?"

The glowing humanoid shape rolled her eyes. "I always could, John. I just never bothered to tell you."

While John was still digesting this, Chiabell looked at the others. "So you guys saved yourselves? You didn't need a convenient plot device?" She started to sound just the slightest bit fearful. "I don't get to come back early from my banishment and earn everyone's everlasting gratitude for breaking the rules?"

The children shook their heads in unison. "At least you missed the polka music, though," Pilot pointed out.

"Well, frell," Chiabell said. "This fairy dren isn't all it's cracked up to be, even if I did miss the polka. Wasn't there something in my contract that said..."

"I think," John interrupted, "that we're getting off track. Or, rather, the writer is getting off track. Aren't we supposed to be doing the happily ever after bit by now?"

After a bit of grumbling, the others agreed that it was time for a conclusion. Zhaan started talking first.

"Thank you all for rescuing me," she said, hugging the Darlings and John. "You'll always have a place to stay with the blue-skin tribe if you need it."

"Thanks, Zhaan," the others echoed. In a flash, she was gone from sight, having used her blue-skin power of moving really really fast to get from the marauder to the shore.

"Well, *I* am gonna go see what other kind of job I can get besides this fairy gig," Chiabell said. "I hear angels are getting good work these days. Ciao." She sped off in a twinkling of light and a shower of pixie dust.

John looked at the Darlings, excitement burning in his eyes. "You'll have to come back to the Leviathan with me. My contract says there'll be another adventure for us tomorrow."

Aeryn, D'Argo, and Pilot looked at one another for a long moment. Finally, D'Argo said, "I suppose Mother and Father are missing us."

"Probably," Aeryn and Pilot agreed reluctantly.

John didn't like the direction this conversation was taking. Not one tiny bit. "Come on, guys, you don't wanna go back to them," he cajoled. "You don't wanna get *old*, do ya? Be grown ups?"

Their silent expressions answered the question.

"I don't believe this," John said, backing away from them. "You do. You want to turn into your parents!"

"We have to, John," D'Argo said softly. "Can you take us home?"

John focused on the three faces one at a time, taking in their serious expressions. After swallowing several times, he finally managed to force a weak, "Yeah," out of his throat.

Surprising herself, and going against her better judgment, Aeryn took a few steps toward John. "Our parents...wouldn't mind an extra child," she said carefully. "We...you could come with us. Back home."

Aeryn's words hit John like a punch to the gut, memories of his mother, from whom he had run away to NeverNeverLand, flooding into his consciousness. Meeting Aeryn's eyes, which were shining with something he wouldn't call "tears" for fear of never being able to walk again, John found himself unable to say no to her. (He didn't realize it at the moment, but that was gonna continue for a loooooong time...)

"I..." John trailed off, then tried again. "I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

Smiles lit the faces of the Darling children, and they all began to think happy thoughts. They stopped their flight to quickly say goodbye to the Lost DRDs, and then headed back to 14 Leviathan Lane, where they all lived happily ever after.

(And if you believe *that*, have I got a bridge to sell you...)


End file.
